Mistretta v. Sandia Corp.
| Decision Date | 21 October 1980 |
| Docket Number | 79-1168,Nos. 79-1021,s. 79-1021 |
| Citation | 639 F.2d 588 |
| Parties | 24 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 316, 26 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 218, 24 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 31,304, 24 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 31,379 Frank MISTRETTA et al., Plaintiffs, Frank Alden et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. SANDIA CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Intervenor. Charles PUGLISI, Plaintiff, Cross-Appellant, v. SANDIA CORPORATION, Defendant, Cross-Appellee, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Intervenor. to 79-1181 and 79-1209. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
John M. Kulikowski, Albuquerque, N.M. (Robert H. Clark, of Keleher & McLeod, P. A., of Albuquerque, N.M., on the brief), for plaintiffs-appellees, cross-appellant.
Robert M. St. John (William A. Sloan, Bruce D. Hall, Victor R. Marshall and Kenneth J. Ferguson, of Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb, P. A., Albuquerque, N.M., on the brief), for defendant-appellant, cross-appellee.
Kerry L. Adams, Washington, D.C. (James E. White, Regional Sol., Carin Ann Clauss, Sol. of Labor, Donald S. Shire, Assoc. Sol., Lois G. Williams, Gregory O'Duden, Attys., U.S. Dept. of Labor, Washington, D.C., on the brief), for intervenor.
Before SETH, Chief Judge, and BARRETT and DOYLE.
This cause is a consolidated appeal by Sandia Corporation from fifteen judgments entered in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico in favor of former Sandia employees on December 27, 1978. One former employee, Puglisi, who was denied relief in the lower court has cross-appealed.
The case is procedurally complex. The matters considered here all arise under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1), (2), (3). 1 The happenings are the outgrowth of a work force reduction which occurred at Sandia in the Spring of 1973, and which was triggered by a cutback in federal funding of Sandia's operations.
Five of the terminated employees brought two actions in the District Court in the Fall of 1975. Their allegations were that they had been terminated because of their ages, which ages were within the age perimeters of the Act. The cases were consolidated in the District Court, and were joined by more former employees of Sandia who took advantage of the provisions of 29 U.S.C. § 216, which allowed aggrieved persons to become parties by the filing of consents. Subsequently, on March 20, 1975, the Secretary of Labor filed a complaint in the same court on behalf of fourteen former employees whose employment at Sandia had been terminated in the reduction in force. Those persons also alleged illegal age discrimination. The result of these filings was a further consolidation in the district court cases. A distinction has been maintained throughout this action between the individual claimants represented by the Secretary of Labor and those parties to the individual actions. The plaintiffs-appellees here have been referred to as the "private plaintiffs", and it is their actions which are now being reviewed.
The consolidated cases were set for trial in two stages. The first stage, known as the "liability" phase, was tried to the court, Judge Edwin L. Mechem presiding, on January 19, 1977. It was continued through February 17, 1977. The second stage, known as the "remedial" phase, was divided so as to be tried separately on the Secretary of Labor's evidence and the private plaintiffs' evidence. This was on the assumption that the "liability" phase showed that the plaintiffs had established a prima facie case of illegal age discrimination. The trial court issued its Interlocutory Opinion on October 20, 1977. It held inter alia that a prima facie case of illegal discrimination had been shown based on age; that there existed a pattern or practice directed at portions of the protected class, employees between the ages of 52 and 64. The trial thereafter proceeded into the second phase of the case. This commenced on June 20, 1978 and continued through July 6, 1978, of the issues raised by the seventeen private plaintiffs. Pursuant to the Interlocutory Opinion, and in response to the prima facie case, Sandia went forward with the burden of presenting evidence in its defense. Its effort was to overcome the prima facie case. The plaintiffs went forward with the burden of showing that the reasons articulated by Sandia for their individual selection for termination were pretexts for unlawful discrimination.
On September 28, 1978, the trial court entered findings of fact and conclusions of law, and supplemental findings on December 14, 1978. Judgments in favor of fifteen of the private plaintiffs and against Sandia totaling $920,277.00, plus interest and attorney's fees, were entered on December 22, 1978, as was judgment in favor of Sandia on the claims of two of the private plaintiffs. These judgments were made final by order of the court on December 27, 1978.
The case filed by the Secretary of Labor commenced on October 24, 1978 and continued through November 2, 1978. It culminated in a judgment in favor of the Secretary on the claims of eleven of the fourteen former Sandia employees for money damages and injunctive relief. Our opinion in that case has been written and filed.
Sandia's appeals of all of the judgments rendered against it were consolidated in this Court for oral argument. During the pendency of the appeal the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission succeeded to the enforcement authority of the Secretary of Labor and succeeded the Secretary of Labor as a party to the appeal. We issued our opinion in the government's case on August 13, 1980, and denied a Petition for Rehearing after modifying the mandate on Sept. 4, 1980. See Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Sandia Corporation, 639 F.2d 600 (10th Cir. 1980). Our action in that case affirmed the district court on all issues raised by the appellant, Sandia, except the issue of an award of damages which did not allow the employer to offset severance pay, upon which issue the matter was reversed in part and remanded to the district court. The factual background of the instant case is identical to that set forth in pages 603 through 605 of our opinion in the EEOC case, 639 F.2d 600, as is a summary of the statistical and direct evidence upon which the trial court found and concluded that the plaintiffs in the "liability" phase had established a prima facie case. The latter is set forth at pages 605 through 615, 639 F.2d 600.
The arguments and contentions advanced by Sandia in the present appeal are summarized as follows; that the trial court erred in:
1. Finding that the evidence established a prima facie case that Sandia unlawfully discriminated against employees on the basis of age, and more specifically, the court erred in its consideration of the statistical evidence.
2. Interpreting the effect of the finding of a prima facie case that Sandia engaged in a pattern and practice of unlawful age discrimination as placing an invalid burden on Sandia in the remedial stage of the proceedings.
3. Finding that the evidence established a prima facie case of unlawful discrimination on the basis of age in connection with Sandia's adoption and use of an age-based system of granting salary increases, a practice which was known within the company as "stretch out."
4. Concluding that certain of the private plaintiffs satisfied the notice and deferral requirements of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
5. Finding that the alleged violations were in fact and in law willful.
6. Allowing damages to the private plaintiffs on the basis of the finding of discrimination in the adoption and maintenance of the stretch out policy.
Additionally, the cross-appeal of the private plaintiff Puglisi challenges the sufficiency of the evidence upon which his complaint against Sandia was dismissed.
We have held in the basic companion case, EEOC v. Sandia Corporation, that the trial court property applied the applicable legal standards when it found and concluded that the private and government plaintiffs had established, at the "liability phase" of the proceeding, that Sandia engaged in a pattern and practice of unlawful discrimination on the basis of age; that this involved employes between the ages of 52 and 64. We held further that the trial court's findings were not only supported by the statistical evidence but by direct evidence, testimony and documents as well. We concluded that the weight attributed by the trial court to the rebuttal evidence adduced by Sandia in the "remedial phase" of the government's case on behalf of the claimants represented by the Secretary of Labor was not a clearly erroneous application of the established legal doctrines concerning the burden of proof in cases where a pattern and practice of unlawful discrimination on the basis of age is alleged.
The supporting evidence of the finding of a prima facie case of unlawful pattern and practice in the matter before us is the statistical and direct evidence adduced at the liability phase of the trial in January and February, 1977. This is fully set forth and discussed in our previous opinion, EEOC v. Sandia Corporation, supra, at pages 605 through 615, and 620 through 624. We need not repeat the presentation and comments here.
The private plaintiffs do not raise any substantially new or different allegations of error which were not considered in the appeal of the government's judgment. We stated in the EEOC case that ...
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